


To the Rescue

by Rmlohner



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23596813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rmlohner/pseuds/Rmlohner
Summary: She used to just be a lab rat. But upon getting new intelligence, Gadget Hackwrench is determined to free her fellow test subjects and escape Black Heron.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

“What?”

The single word suddenly popped into her head. Nothing like it had ever been there before. Up until now her life had simply been about food and sleep. She still remembered all of that, and how it had made perfect sense at the time, but now it somehow seemed…inadequate. From that first word, all kinds of other questions were pouring into her head, all at once, and she desperately shook it to clear out the noise. When she was done, a single question had risen to the top.

“Who am I?”

It seemed ridiculous that such a basic concept had never occurred to her before, and along with it came the realization that she actually didn’t know. She remembered her mother, but there was no real attachment there beyond being where her food had come from in her early days before she learned to find it herself. She and all her siblings had never had names, and never even felt the need to talk to each other.

Pushing all that aside for a moment, she took a look around. The same cage she’d been in for the past…no, she had no idea how long she’d been here, or even been alive. Next to her was another much larger male rat and two chipmunks also in their own cages. But her eyes quickly glazed past them to the much larger thing that she remembered had put them all here, and was currently staring at her quite intently. Maybe this could be her answer. First copying the captor’s posture by standing on her hind legs, she asked “Excuse me, who am I?”

Her captor took a big step back, her eyes first widening in shock before turning to pleasure, the expressions seeming obvious to her despite never having seen them before. “It works! It works!” the huge thing was shouting, before turning back to her. “I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Black Heron, and you can call me your master, for it was I who gave you intelligence with this.” Black Heron presented a strange looking object, the word “gadget” popping into her mind from nowhere just like everything else was lately. This would seem to come in handy from now on. But one thing bothered her: Black Heron would seem to be someone she should thank for letting her think like this, but at the same time that word “master” somehow seemed wrong, some instinct warning her away from anyone who would use it like that. Black Heron went on, “Now you just stay right there.” I have to make sure all of this is recorded.” With that she left the room, still without answering the question. Another bad sign.

Now on her own with the other rodents, she quickly grew bored. The cage was far too small despite how content she had been in it before. After searching all around her in vain for a way out, she remembered the one direction she’d never had much cause to look before now, and sure enough found there was no top to it. Now she just needed a way to get to it. The edge was far beyond her jumping capability, and there was nothing she could stand on to get closer. In frustration she threw some of her food at the wall, and her eyes widened at seeing the mush stick to the glass and only slowly move down. An idea had popped into her head.

She went to the corner, and hesitantly put her paws on both walls, worried it wouldn’t work and she’d be back to having no hope. But she soon found that by putting enough pressure to the sides, her weight would be supported. She soon made her way right up to the top, and made the short jump to the next cage over. “Hey, you in there!” she whispered, worried Black Heron might still be close by. “Chipmunk!” But her neighbor only looked up briefly with a dull glaze in his eyes before ignoring her again. Her heart sank as she realized he, and probably the others, were still just like she used to be. But quickly following that thought was another. If that “gadget” had done this to her, maybe it would also work on them.

With her new vantage point she could quickly scan the whole room, and before long found it. But this was far from the end of the task, as it was all the way across the room, on a high desk. With this in mind, she kept searching, and discovered the place was full of stuff that she might be able to use to get there, by putting it together into another gadget. In fact, the more she thought about that word, the more she liked it. And she never did get an answer to that question, “Who am I?” It was as good a name as any, she supposed.

“Gadget. I’m Gadget.” She liked the sound of that. Now, to work.


	2. Chapter 2

As Gadget surveyed the room for signs of how she could cross to the thing that made her this way, she realized how useful it would be to carry things with her rather than lug them one at a time with her bare hands. She remembered the clothes Black Heron wore, which featured several pockets. This brought up the question of how she could get something similar, but eventually the answer arrived: the bank of monitors in the lab showed several different rooms in what was clearly the same building they were in, which appeared to spend part of its time giving dolls to children who won games. Some of them seemed to be roughly the same size as Gadget, and she finally saw one with clothes that looked suitable.

Much to her relief, after the initial euphoria at her invention’s success, Black Heron mostly left Gadget to her own devices, allowing her mostly free reign of the place. And after watching her at the monitors long enough to figure out how the keyboard below them worked, Gadget waited until she left and then went through what was by now a familiar routine out climbing out of her cage, down the knobs of the desk it was perched on, and across the floor (she’d actually done this so much that combined with her losing the urge to eat all her food at once, she’d lost a good deal of weight, which of course just made it easier).

Black Heron’s chair had several adjustment levers sticking out that made ideal climbing aids, and from there the rough surface easily let her get onto the chair’s arm where it was just a short jump to the keyboard. Now came the really tedious part, as at her size she could only hit one key at a time, but after a while she succeeded in bringing up a map of the building, which along with the labels on the other monitors allowed her to see how to get to the storage room for the prizes.

Now came the really dangerous part, as she needed to brave the hallways. She doubted anyone other than Black Heron would suspect what she was really up to, but she remembered from her early life that her kind was considered vermin by the larger creatures and often killed. And there were quite a few times that she had to hide as best she could against the wall as someone went by, though luckily none of them seemed to feel any need to look down. Before long, she gotten to her destination and found her prize, a purple suit with several pockets plus goggles similar to ones she remembered seeing Black Heron wear when her experiments might hurt her eyes.

After getting back to the lab, she set about gathering her supplies, now made much easier with her pockets. Black Heron’s lab coat was hanging on a rack, which she was able to climb up and then find a tiny bit of string starting to come loose, which she pulled at and then bit off when she had enough. From there, she scoured the floor for anything that could make an anchor, going through several failed experiments with different bits of trash until she finally found a paper clip which could easily cause the string to loop around its target and then hold fast.

With her new invention, she made her way up the desk where the device she now knew as the Intelli-ray, after Black Heron rather proudly had showed it to her in a rare visit, was stored. And now, the part she couldn’t plan for given the lack of information, and just had to wing it. She had no idea how heav the Intelli-ray was, and if she found herself unable to budge it, she would be back at square one. But luckily, she found she could actually move it around. However, getting it back over to the cages was absolutely out of the question.

So Gadget was forced to try to aim from here as best she could. She naturally tried for the biggest target first, and by getting inside the trigger grip and pushing with her feet, she was able to activate the beam…which landed quite far of the mark. What followed was several more trial and error shots, struggling to visualize from where each one hit on the opposite wall just how much she needed to change the ray’s aim, and all the while hoping against hope that Black Heron wouldn’t return and leave her no time to hide. But finally she hit the large mouse spot on, and could barely contain her excitement as she put the ray back where she found it and then raced all the way back across the room.

She headed past the two chipmunks and climbed to the top of the large mouse’s cage, where she said “Can you understand me?”

The mouse looked up at her in surprise and said in a strange accent, “You know, I think I can? What’s going on here?” He then got a quite comical facial expression that Gadget was embarrassed to realize must have also appeared on her own face as she was figuring these out. “And just who am I?”

Gadget smiled reassuringly at him. “Trust me, you’ll figure it out. But for now, we’ve got two others to help.” She gestured to the two chipmunks.

The mouse shrugged. “Seems like as good a plan as any to me. By the way, you know where we can get some cheese?”


	3. Chapter 3

Gadget and her new ally were halfway across the floor when the sound of Black Heron’s impending return arrived. She’d become quite attuned to it, and knew they could definitely get back to their cages if they started now. The mouse easily followed her lead and she felt good about their chances…until a few seconds later she realized he wasn’t behind her anymore. Turning back, she cringed to see him making a beeline straight for Black Heron, or more specifically, to the lunch she was bringing in.

With a bellow of “CHEEEEEESE!”, he attacked the sandwich, much to Black Heron’s disgust. “Oh you filthy thing, how did you get out?” Luckily, her captor seemed so offended by the display that she didn’t even seem to notice he’d said anything, and carried him across the room at arm’s length before roughly throwing him back in the cage. Gadget just barely made it back into her own before those eyes turned to it. “Did you have anything to do with this?”

Gadget put on what she hoped was a convincing innocent expression. “Oh golly, I sure hope not.” She inwardly winced at the cheesy line, but she had to keep going now. “That greedy mouse just can’t be kept away from cheese, I guess.”

Black Heron looked skeptical for a moment, but then ended the suspense with a sigh. “I suppose. It’s a good thing I didn’t use the ray on him; the last thing I need is that kind of tenacity along with intelligence.”

Before long she went back to her work, as she’d been doing every day, apparently not caring at all about Gadget now that she knew the ray worked. She didn’t even seem phased by her new outfit. So Gadget climbed back out and over to the mouse again. “What was that about?” she demanded in the whisper she’d figured out Black Heron couldn’t hear across the room through trial and error.

The mouse looked quite abashed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I’ve just always been that way around cheese. Wensleydale, Stilton, Monterey Jack, it just does something to my head.”

Gadget sighed. “I guess there are things even that ray can’t take away from nature. Black Heron would probably be pretty interested in that, if she ever found out.”

“Oh, I’d like to whop her good and proper! Throwing me around like that.” He rubbed his sore backside where he’d landed. “She’s actually worse than what you said.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’ll have to wait. We’d still be stuck here with a bunch more like her, and they’d all be looking for us. No, first we have to get out of here, and I’m not leaving anyone behind.” She turned again toward the two chipmunks.

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Good things come to those who wait and all that.”

In time, Black Heron left the room again and they picked up back where they started. Her new ally didn’t take long to show the advantage he brought to the table, with his strength being able to handle the ray much easier, allowing Gadget to focus just on aiming. Which was quite important given that she was now after much smaller targets.

After a set of misses far more frustrating than she’d ever admit, Gadget finally nailed them both and hurried back over, eager to introduce herself to the new members of the team.

Though they actually managed to get the drop on her there, by greeting her with “Hi, I’m Chip.” “And I’m Dale.”

The mouse frowned. “Wait, you two have names already?”

The chipmunks stared like he’d just asked if the sky was really blue. “Don’t you?” asked Chip. Apparently this was just a chipmunk thing.

Before things could get any weirder, Gadget took charge. “I’m Gadget. And we’re all a lot smarter now than we used to be, thanks to a very handy device way over there.”

“And you can call me Monterey Jack.” Gadget looked at the mouse in confusion. “Hey, I’d feel a bit silly being the only one without a name, and it was the first thing that popped into my head.”

She shrugged. “Well, now that we’re all together like this, we can talk about what’s really important: getting out of here.” She explained the full situation to everyone, and by the time she finished, they’d all started coming up with a plan.


	4. Chapter 4

Chip, Dale, and Monterey Jack were now finished picking their own clothes off the toy prizes, after what had thankfully been a perfectly smooth trip back to the storage room. Gadget knew she should be quite thankful that no other cheese had passed close by, but she couldn’t hold it against Monty (as they’d all started calling him for simplicity’s sake) too much. He truly seemed to have no control over it, and for all she knew, she too had some primal animal instinct waiting to cause trouble.

“Wow, looking sharp!” said Dale upon seeing Chip’s chosen outfit, off an old-fashioned adventure hero.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Chip replied. Dale had chosen a tropical-themed doll to swipe from.

“What, no compliments for me?” Monty’s chosen outfit was a bit more non-descript, as he’d had rather fewer options given his size. Gadget threw him a bone with “I like the goggles. Quite practical.”

Monty quickly moved on. “And now that we’re all dressed up, what’s the next part of the plan?”

Gadget grinned. “I’m not sure how, but that ray seems to have given me a sense about how things can work together. And I’ve been thinking that with how much bigger everyone else is around here, we can’t keep just running around on the floor. Someone might even just step on us by accident. So my idea is, we make a flying machine.”

Monty winked at her. “I stowed away on one of those once. But surely you can’t be thinking of making something that size?”

Gadget laughed. “No, just big enough for the four of us. And from what I’ve learned about this place, there’s sure to be plenty of stuff we can use, even if it was never intended for this kind of thing. Science is science, no matter the size.”

Chip spoke up with “Well, where should we-“

He was apparently going to end with “start,” but just then someone entered the room. It was a rooster with a metal beak who Gadget was quite sure she’d never seen before. But any hope that they might have a new friend was dashed with the cruel laugh he gave out. “And just who are you supposed to be? A bunch of thieves, looks like.” He took a closer look. “Wait a minute, you’re that rat from the video! What are you doing out of your cage? Well, Black Heron will just have to find another rat, because there’s no way you’re getting out of here!”

The four of them scattered as their enemy’s foot came down, momentarily making him pause as he decided which one to go after. But the reprieve was all too brief as he settled on Gadget. She barely avoided a second stomp from that giant foot, and realized she was already feeling worn down after everything she’d done today. She’d never be able to keep this up past a couple more stomps at most.

But as it turned out, she didn’t have to. Seemingly out of nowhere, the rooster stopped in his tracks, and seemed to be knocked off balance. As he swayed back upright, his head lurched to the side like he’d been punched in the face, despite nothing seeming to cause it. It happened a few more times, and then he collapsed unconscious, narrowly avoiding landing on Monty, who seemed about to faint himself at the near miss.

The mystery was solved as without all the noise their enemy had made, a buzzing could be heard high above them. It then grew closer, until Gadget could make out…a fly?

Yes, that’s what it was, and even more surprising, upon landing beside them it spoke, asking “Are you all right?”

Gadget found her voice first. “Golly, yes, I think so. But how did you do that, and how are you talking?”

The fly shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Not long ago, I suddenly starting thinking things I never had before, about myself. Then I noticed you all sneaking out the door and followed you. And it turns out that was a good thing.”

Gadget sighed. “I’ll say. You must have been in the path of the ray when I used it on Chip and Dale. I’ll explain later, but we’re still in quite a pickle at the moment. But you’re welcome to join the team, if you want.” She looked around at the others, who all nodded their approval.

The fly smiled. “You got it! Oh, and you can call me Zipper. It just sort of popped into my head when I started thinking these things.”

They all shook hands with their new friend, and then got back down to business.


End file.
